


The Other Tucker

by cheeky_geek_m0nkey



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: AU, F/F, John Tucker AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:12:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4226637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheeky_geek_m0nkey/pseuds/cheeky_geek_m0nkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where John Tucker has a little sister, who wears too much eye-liner and has this tendency to injure her lab partners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Being Invisible

She was used to her life moving without significance, her days blurring together into a series of indistinguishable sociological observations. Studying other people was her science, while the act of being invisible was her art. She’d gotten impossibly good at both, which was why walking into the library for detention gave her a sick, scared sort of feeling.

The punishment was evidence that something in the monotonous equilibrium of her life was being thrown off, albeit accidentally, and she wasn’t eager to throw away the warmth and safety of her invisibility - especially if the consequence of visibility at all resembled the icy glares shot at her back by the three girls who’d put her in this predicament in the first place.

Because, all things considered, being invisible was nice. It allowed her the anonymity she needed to ruin a grading curve without teasing and the obscurity necessary to wear the same outfit more than a few days in a row without being burned at the stake. It also allowed her to walk into the library without raising the alarm of the girl at the desk, who was singing the most beautiful rendition of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me”.

Yes, being invisible was nice. And Chloe sank into the benefits of her invisibility, letting the sound of the other girl’s voice wash over her. It was soft, but it was strong, still, rounding out the edges of the song so that it became a quiet ballad - warm and comfortable and, because of the slight rasp in her voice, undeniably sexy.

But her invisibility had it’s limits, of course, and so the other girl’s song was interrupted suddenly at the end of the chorus with a “sh-shit, I didn’t see you there”. She quickly pushed off her bulky headphones, the twists and twirls of her messy braids getting caught in the wires as she blushed profusely.

Chloe smiled, looking down to allow the girl time to compose herself. It was kind of adorable, Chloe thought before she had the chance to redirect her mind.

“Cheap Trick,” Chloe offered when the other girl stuttered, trying to explain herself, “I understand.”

“Yeah, yeah it is,” the other girl said mindlessly as her eyes roamed over Chloe, finally over her embarrassment enough to notice Chloe’s presence. She’d been sized up a lot in the early weeks of transferring - since entering high school in general, she was used to the other girls assessing her threat level. But this look was different - less scrutinizing, more observational, like the other girl was categorizing every freckle on her face and tear in her jeans so she’d remember it better for later. Chloe wasn’t sure why, but she felt herself blush.

“You can’t really hum to Cheap Trick,” she continued, trying to tear the other girl’s eyes away from their path. 

“Yeah,” the other girl let out a breath of air, scratching her forehead with the end of a pencil, “Once you’ve started, you’re kind of obligated to belt it out.”

Chloe nodded again, and their eyes met. Where Chloe’s were a light sky blue, this girl’s were much darker - nearly black.

“I’m Beca,” the girl said to break through the silence that had spread between them. “You’re from chemistry, right?”

Chloe, surprised, looked up suddenly. She could feel her smile spread before she was aware of it. It was a sentence she had grown accustomed to. “You’re from (insert class here)” was a common mode of small talk meant to make it seem like people actually remembered her name. Only, 98% of the time, the other person had the class entirely wrong, and was only saying it as a means of maintaining some small-talk etiquette.

Beca, though, the tiny ball of over-sized leather bracelets and combat boots, remembered her correctly.

“Yeah,” she said, “Yeah. I’m Chloe. So, um…where is everybody?”

Beca looked up, confused, and Chloe clarified. “Detention?”

“Y-you came early to detention?” Beca asked, her smirk growing.

Chloe’s face fell. She hadn’t realized she’d gotten the time wrong. “Oh, well, um, it’s…” stumbled over her words, trying to remedy the situation. “I would hate to m-miss a m-minute of being…detained.”

She winced then at the ridiculousness of her words, but the pain was quickly replaced with a flushed when she noticed the suggestive side-eyed look Beca shot at her.  
And she would’ve considered the ramifications of that flushed feeling more if it weren’t for her eyes hazarding a glance out the window to find John Tucker, playing with the zipper on some sophomore girl’s jacket. Involuntarily, she made a noise of disgust.

“Oh wow,” Beca said, that grin still hinting at the edge of her lips, “That’s, uh, not normally the reaction he gets from girls. It’s really more of a…” she paused, then, to make a series of moaning and groaning noises that sent blood rushing to Chloe’s head - which she immediately laughed off, rushing to interrupt Beca before the alt girl made anymore…sounds.

“Yeah, okay, jerk isn’t really my type,” she answered coolly, and Beca raised an eyebrow. Her eyes sparkled as her grin grew, as if Chloe said some kind of inside joke that she wasn’t really aware of.

“You’re right, he definitely has his jerk moments.”

“Wow, I thought he was every girl’s Greek god, or whatever,” Chloe answered, curious and confused. Beca scrunched her nose at that, shaking her head. Chloe wondered briefly if she should warn the other girl that her rebellious appearance was in serious danger in light of her overwhelming adorableness. But she quickly brushed that thought aside.

“That’s not really my….” Beca paused, waving her hands awkwardly around her head to communicate what she couldn’t say politely, “Um…ballpark.”

Before Chloe could question her words and the blush that crept up Beca’s neck, she quickly followed with, “He’s actually, um…my older brother.”

“Oh,” Chloe was genuinely surprised. And intrigued. Admittedly, the smirks and winks made infinitely more sense - being able to made someone’s stomach do somersaults must be a genetic trait - but there was nothing in the small girl’s demeanor that hinted at familiarity. Where John was massive, crafted as the all-American, alpha-male athlete, Beca was impossibly small, lined in thick black makeup and ear…monstrosities. “You’re the other Tucker?”

Beca looked at Chloe with her eyebrows raised, “Yeah, what is that? Is that like…the loser Tucker?”

“Oh no no no,” Chloe was stumbling on her words now, chastising herself for the way they came out. If she was being honest, this was the longest conversation she had with a non-adult in…well, in far too long of a time. “You just don’t look –”

“Hot? Buff? Incapable of inciting an all-girls smack-down?” Beca interrupted, standing up to put her backpack over her shoulders. When she started to leave, she stopped at Chloe’s place at the table, leaning in. She was wearing a tank top, and with her height, Chloe had to actively remember to look up and keep eye-contact. Though, that didn’t help much with Chloe’s nerves, seeing as her eyes were an even darker shade of blue from this close.

“I’ve got my stories,” she breathed, winking. Chloe shuddered, taking a breath, uncertain how to respond to the close contact or the wink or, really, any of the slight implications that may or may not have been thrown out by that comment. Collecting herself, she looked away from Beca, playing with the pencil in her hand. 

“G-good for you,” she finally said, hating the way her voice cracked at the end of it. Beca tapped the table with her knuckles, pulling herself up to full height and biting her lip. Chloe’s stomach flipped again.

“Yeah,” she said, walking backwards to the door, “It is.”


	2. Being Watched

Being invisible was nice, but over the course of only a few days, she was suddenly being seen. And it was strange.

Mostly because she felt the temporary-ness of it all - the fact that this new visibility would only last for as long as John Tucker could hold himself together, and then she would be hurled back out into the world of observation and analysis. She knew it wouldn’t last forever, she knew she was being used, but there was still something so satisfying about the adrenaline boost that accompanied being a part of something - even if that something was temporary, dangerous, and pseudo-superficial feminist in the worst way.

This new process of interaction and involvement occupied most of her mind most hours of the day, now, which was why she didn’t notice the figure sulking behind her in chemistry until she felt a hesitant tap on her shoulder. The touch surprised her, jolting her out of her own thoughts quick enough to hear the “hey” that came from the small voice of the girl next to her.

When Chloe turned, she saw Beca, offering up an uncomfortable wave that jangled her wrist cuffs and bracelets. There was a shy smile on her lips, and Chloe couldn’t help but note the sweetness behind that timidness and the sharp contrast it made to Beca’s brother’s permanent grin.

“Hey.” She was immediately smiling in response.

“So,” Beca drummed out a quick beat on the desk, “Can I ask you for a favor? I’m in need of a lab partner. I was with Amy but…she got burnt pretty badly. In an experiment. So…”

Occasionally, Beca glanced at her hands instead of at Chloe when she talked, her sentences flying out in one quick, nervous breath. It was stunning, the way that she could jump from the girl who confidently murmured innuendos to the girl who stuttered nervous monologues. 

“Oh, well,” Chloe started, her hands fiddling with her pockets before she moved to cross them, taking on a pretend place of authority. The act was easy, which shocked Chloe, who’d never quite experienced anything close to comfortable banter before. “Before I say yes, how exactly did she get burned?”

“Ah, well,” Beca pursed her lips, looking at the graduated cylinder, and Chloe watched the playful grin creep up her face. “See, that…that is up to interpretation. Because she will say that it was my fault. But I clearly said, ‘Dear God, woman, you’re on fire, run for your life’.”

Chloe laughed. It was small, short, but it was genuine. Nearly like breathing for the first time in a while. “A clear warning.”

“Yeah,” Beca smiled at the sound too, as if she knew how long it had been since the world had heard Chloe laugh. The blonde blinked, surprised that her eyes had chosen to hyper-focus on the smaller girl’s lips. She took a breath to steady herself and turned towards the lab table.

“Okay, well you can start by measuring 40 mL into that graduated cylinder.”

She turned to check on her new lab partner - if only to stop the stare she felt pressed against her back as well the responding shiver that coursed through her spine - to find Beca’s eyes locked on hers, with the solution pouring out much too quickly. Without thinking, Chloe put a hand on Beca’s shoulder to slow her down, and the other girl jumped, as if she was just now realizing that she’d been pouring anything at all.

She was wearing a tank-top - again - but this one was a slightly lighter shade of black (a fact Chloe didn’t know why she remembered), and Chloe spotted the branches of a tattoo peeking out from under her grasp on Beca’s shoulder.

“Slow down and get down at eye-level,” Chloe demanded, pushing the girl’s shoulder down so that she was kneeling. Beca moved to glance at Chloe, but her line of sight was obstructed by the girl’s chest, and Chloe’s stomach turned at the way the other girl blushed and quickly looked away.

“Pour until the bottom of the meniscus is at the line.”

“The meniscus?” Beca raised an eyebrow, as if Chloe had just pulled out a pocket protector and a pair of poorly taped, wire-rimmed glasses. Chloe only rolled her eyes, leaning down to be at eye-level too. “Wait until the curvy part is at the doodad.”

Beca bit her lip, nodding. Their shared glance lasted a fraction of a second before Chloe became completely aware of their proximity and focused on the task at hand. 

“Slowly,” Chloe breathed, her hand gradually finding Beca’s and resting lightly on it. Like with the earlier shoulder touch, Beca’s breath hitched, her eyes darting to Chloe’s face, then to her chest, and her face again. They were entirely too close. And Chloe never felt extremely comfortable with being this near someone. 

She told herself that that was why she felt so on edge, like every sense was working at 110% capacity. Luckily, she didn’t have much time to come up with any arguments against her excuse, because Beca’s hand had jerked involuntarily at the contact, causing the graduated cylinder to spill all over her skin-tight jeans.

“Shit, fuck, shit,” Beca sputtered, scooting back in total panic. She began to do a little dance, jumping up and down and exhaling. “Fuck, I spilled it. What do I do!? What is this shit?!”

“Sodium chloride suspension,” Chloe answered, smiling at little at the smaller girl’s antics. She fiddled with the pen in her hand, watching Beca’s eyes bug out. 

“Shit…it’s burning,” the girl groaned.

“Really?” Chloe bit back her giggle, trying to raise an eyebrow, “Cuz…sodium chloride is…salt water.”

Beca stopped jumping, her mouth open in surprise and embarrassment. Chloe was beginning to love the way Beca’s blush crept from her chest to her cheeks when she was stumbling through humiliation. She’d seen that blush too many times, probably. Pursing her lips, Beca breathed to recover from the scene. “Oh,” she said, stripped of any ounce of Tucker bravado that might run through her bloodstream. “Okay, well then I didn’t burn myself. It just kinda looks like I peed.”

Once more, Chloe was shocked at how different this girl was from her brother. How she sank into the tangy quirks of uncomfortable situations with a grin and shrug, like awkward was a house that she lived in.

Beca slipped her fingers into the beaker of salt water, flicking a few droplets at Chloe before the blonde fought back. Before too long, they were battling it out, with “sodium chloride suspension” as the weapon of choice. The giggle bursting from Chloe grew into a belly laugh, and if the sound surprised her earlier, this time it completely froze her in time. When accompanied by Beca’s fearless guffaw, it made a strangely beautiful melody - a sound nice enough to distract her from the teacher walking into the room and demanding they quiet down. Chloe had to put a hand over her mouth to calm herself.

When she looked up, relishing the feeling of getting a stern index finger pointed at her for the second time that week, Beca had her tongue between her teeth, smiling even though she was shaking her head and sighing. “Yeah, Chlo, jeez,” she muttered jokingly. It was the first time the other girl had used her name and – wait…why, exactly, had she noticed that?

There was a twinkle of mischief in Beca’s eye, like usual, and Chloe found that to be inexplicably more pure than the one John wore 24/7. 

“You’ve really got to learn to control yourself,” Beca said, throwing another wink at Chloe, who bit her lip. Briefly, she wondered why her breathing was losing its rhythm again before she looked down. They had a lab report to type up.


	3. Being Noticed

The game the other girls wanted her to play seemed innocent enough. If anything, it was a lesson in learning how to be confident, self-assured, and infectious. At least, that’s what Chloe was telling herself throughout all the flirting lessons she’d had to attend and classes spent trying to stay awake because she’d stayed up until three last night trying to learn the cheerleading moves that she very clearly was not made to perform. Because the truth was that it was hard, and she’d been nauseous since they’d started this new plan with her. Though school historically never felt like a safe place for her, her anxiety grew to painful levels when she felt the other kids’ eyes boring into her back, or when the teachers surprised her by calling on her (they’d never really known her name in the past). The attention would be bad enough, but it was accompanied by the responsibility of upholding an role that she didn’t fit at all. In every interaction, she felt like she’d felt when she was forced to take a speaking role in her seventh grade Thanksgiving play - and, to be honest, pretending to be a sexy man-eating cheerleader was just as much of a stretch as pretending to be an ear of corn.  
The only time when her fingers were warm instead of cold and numb with panic - the only time when she felt like she could breathe - was in chemistry. Admittedly, there was a twist in her gut that got tighter every time Beca muttered a sarcastic remark under her breath, and she lost track of her center of gravity even more than usual when they had to work in tandem, but it was an strangely easy and natural nervousness that was about as different from her normal panic than John was from Beca.

“So, um,” Beca started when the teacher announced lab time. She was focusing intently on something in her notebook, but when Chloe looked at the page, she noticed that it was filled with intricate doodles. Naturally. Chloe rolled her eyes; Beca was supposed to start making data tables. “Yunno, there’s actually, uh, a pretty decent music scene around here.”

A nervous pause punctuated every word Beca said, and when she finished, she bit the inside of her cheek. Chloe looked up, then, loving to watch the way the other girl was mentally pushing through the cogs and gears in her mind. 

“You know, if I –” Beca stopped herself, throwing a self-deprecating chuckle out before revising her speech. “If I ever hear of a good show,” she started again, raising her eyebrows to prepare for the glance she shot at Chloe. “I could maybe…you know. I could…let you know…about…that show.” The last few words were practically whispered, but with that out of the way, Beca’s eyes finally met Chloe’s. There was no bravado in the act, no smooth confidence to the scared smile she offered, and Chloe could feel the relief Beca was radiating. She appreciated it, too, and understood the overall effort. They stood there, there, and Chloe watched as Beca’s eyes scanned her face. She was surprised that she wasn’t self-conscious - she wasn’t tempted in the slightest to pull away her gaze, covering the scar on her eyebrow or the pock-mark on her chin or the crooked bottom row of her teeth. When Beca’s eyes roamed over those features, she felt…almost proud.

“Where are you supposed to be?” the sharp shout of the teacher broke up their moment, and Beca let out a quick breath before looking around Chloe, confused by the bony boy standing, scared, with a bouquet of flowers.

He stuttered, seeming, almost, to be surprised he was there at all. “I-I was s-supposed to drop these off.”

He handed the flowers to Chloe, who breathed out a wide smile, utterly surprised at the light weight of the flowers in her arms. Beca, for a moment, before the wild jealousy set in, nearly squeaked at the sparkle in the other girl’s eyes. Five more boys, all wearing some variation of the over-sized striped polo and khaki shorts ensemble, walked in with flowers in their arms. The entire time, the teacher was shouting, worried, but his rant was cut off by a familiar voice over the speaker.  
“Attention fellow students,” the class heard John Tucker said, and Chloe could almost feel the cocky grin he was slipping his words through, “If Chloe is out there in loud-speaker-land, then my number is 555-6467.”

The other girls in the class nearly injured themselves trying to find writing utensils to get the number down, but Chloe couldn’t hear much aside from her own breath, surprised and flattered and…overwhelmed, really. There was a pinch of embarrassment there, too, felt when she hazarded a glance to Beca, who only looked unimpressed and frustrated, her eyebrows raised in a mocking-way.

–

“Hey, Smalls,” she felt John tug at her headphones, hurtling her out of the mix she’d been slaving over with the sound of her childhood nickname. (She wasn’t that short). The mix had been frustrating her all afternoon - she’d skipped history in favor of trying to match the chord progressions in a way that swam fluidly. The rollercoaster of sound waves saved her from the blue eyes that kept sneaking into the space behind her eyelids when she blinked.

John chuckled, hoping onto the desk she was working on and crinkling the paper she was doodling on earlier.

“Hey, dude,” Beca offered, pausing the mix and pulling her headphones off with a tired smile. John tended to avoid her completely during school hours - they even drove separately to school most mornings - and it really was a mutual avoidance. Thus, she was immediately suspicious of his motives. And rightly so. With one “hey”, John leaned forward with the determination she remembered seeing when he convinced her to help him try to jump off the roof the summer of their third grade year.

“So, you’re lab partners with Chloe, right?” It was a leading question, he clearly already knew the answer, but Beca had been his little sister long enough to know where this was heading. Her Tucker mask of fake smiles and casual jokes broke momentarily - the realization that his determination wasn’t geared towards trying to fly off the roof but rather towards trying to corrupt the life of the girl she couldn’t stop slipping into her mixes…it hit her, like the instance in a good song where all the music stops before the beat drops. Only it didn’t feel half as good. Or good at all.

John, completely unaware of the break in her mask, chugged onwards. “You two talk. What’s her deal?” 

She pursed her lips, unsure what to say. Her fingers fiddled with her headphones wires until they reached up to rub her eyes. She’d smeared her pounds of eyeliner, but she didn’t care. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I don’t know, dude. I don’t think she’s your type, though.”

It was weak, and Beca cringed inwardly, knowing what he would say next. Sure enough, John held his hands up, incredulously. “Girl is my type,” he scoffed.

Well, at least we’ve got that much in common, Beca thought briefly, cringing again.

“Alright,” she tried, pushing the thought out of her mind, “Well then…” She stopped, thinking about Chloe. The way Chloe looked at her. The way her eyes would trail to Beca’s lips. The way her breath hitched when they got to close. Beca noticed, obviously. She wasn’t wearing tank tops in the middle of fall for nothing. She tried something new. “Then maybe you’re not her type.”

John looked completely surprised by that, as if the very idea was unworthy of being considered. Explaining herself would involve several conversations that Beca didn’t want to bring up, so she fumbled forward. “She’s…she’s into stuff like old school Elvis Costello. She listens to obscure podcasts. She reads Dave Eggers.” Beca paused, searching for any sign of recognition in John’s face. All she got back was a look of disgust. “You know,” she finished, “She’s…she’s deep, dude.”

The face of disgust was quickly replaced with John’s familiar overwhelming confidence. He smiled easily. “Dude, I’m deep,” he argued, completely certain of himself. “I’m dating the poetry club.”

–

“So…John asked you to spy on me?” Chloe tried to hide the excited squeak to her voice by rearranging the obscene amount of bags she was trying to balance on her shoulders. Beca almost felt guilty not helping the stumbling girl, but when she offered, Chloe refused. “Gotta work on those cheer muscles,” she’d said at the time with a wink that made Beca roll her eyes, biting back her grin.

“Yeah,” Beca answered, trying to brush it off as casual, but recognizing the high pitch that accompanied her jealousy, which was quickly blossoming at the way Chloe seemed to brighten at the mention of John. “He heard we were lab partners, so he’s having me tail you and find out what I can.”

They stop in the cafeteria, eying each other with smiles on their faces. Damn, they did that alot. Beca looked away, taking a breath. “Although, I’m supposed to be playing it cool and not giving anything away.” She shrugged, daring Chloe to question her.

“You’re, like, the worst spy in the world,” Chloe giggled, moving to re-situate her bags, which were currently digging into her shoulders.

“Orrr,” Beca sang slightly, leaning towards the other girl, “Am I the best spy in the world? Who’s standing by the phone and who’s chatting up the girl?” She finished with a wink, and Chloe thought that the move shouldn’t have fit Beca’s character - all heavy make-up and tattered jeans - but, then again, Beca’s last name is Tucker, and sure enough the move made Chloe’s stomach do that special Beca-flip thing again. It happens so often now, Chloe should be tired of it, but she isn’t. She isn’t at all.

“That’s true,” Chloe amended, still pulling at her bag straps until one completely falls off her shoulder, She rushes to pick up it, but stops in her tracks to let out a grunt of pain. “I have a kink,” she groaned, and, in different circumstances, Beca would’ve raised her eyebrows and cracked a joke to watch that blush grow on Chloe’s cheeks. “I have a kink in my neck.”

Beca rushed to pick up the dropped bag, loosening the straps slightly. “That’s probably those new cheer muscles of yours,” she quipped, and Chloe sputtered an embarrassed laugh.

“Are you making fun of me?” she scoffed in mock offense, and it’s so adorable that Beca forgets where she’s at for a second. She moves on her tiptoes, lifting the bag’s straps over the other girl’s head and letting her hands hovering when the bag presses into Chloe’s collar. “Uh, a little bit, yeah,” Beca said with a smile, an attempt to pull herself back together. The attempt was futile, though. Of course. Beca’s hands were on Chloe’s neck, and they were standing close enough that she could smell Chloe’s toothpaste and citrus scent. Everything was futile at this point.

Chloe felt similarly, drowning in the coconut and warm leather smell of Beca, and she thinks that either the bags are cutting off circulation or she’s become a floating head with no body because of the look that Beca’s giving her - and, my God, it looks so much better on her face than her brothers and…shit did she really just think that?  
Embarrassed, Chloe prayed for the power to push away her flush, averting her eyes first as Beca followed, throwing herself back to the floor to pick up the other fallen books. “Uh, sorry,” Chloe sputtered, though she wasn’t sure exactly what she was apologizing for except for the thoughts that had entered her head just then. Beca offered the rest of the books to Chloe awkwardly, and Chloe rambled again. “I just…yeah. I’m gonna go,” she said quickly, “Go. Fight. Roar.”

She visibly winced when she said that, because, honestly, where did that come from? Thankfully, Beca laughed - a weak, pity laugh - and muttered, “Right. Yeah. Yeah.”  
It wasn’t uncomfortable, necessarily - not in the same way that it was when she has to hold her chest a certain way or whisper words with a certain tone so as to pull at the puppet strings controlling John. It was just…Chloe was jittery, and she couldn’t stop smiling when she thought of Beca’s unrelenting stare. Still, she scurried away under the weight of the bags that carried her multiple concocted identities. Somewhere far away, Beca muttered “shit” before walking in the opposite direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got LOADS more fic that I'm slowly uploading to here, but you can find it all on tumblr @ cheeky-geek-m0nkey.tumblr.com


	4. Being Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was bound to be some angst, guys.

“Ah!”

Chloe’s squeal reached over the crackling of the camp fire, and Beca watched as she leaned into John, letting him blow out the flaming marshmallow. It hurt in the way watching a horror movie hurt – there was a stab of fear and anger and sadness in her chest with each passing moment she noted their linked arms and their touching hips, but she couldn’t force herself to look away. She felt sick.

Beca’s unwavering glare throughout the night didn’t go unnoticed by Chloe, who was beginning to get used to the weight of other people’s jealous glances but couldn’t shake the guilt she’d felt when she saw the alt girl at the party earlier that night. It didn’t help that this was her first date, and the constant contact of one cologne-covered John Tucker was making her feel like there was a rabbit running in her chest. The whole feeling of being a lead in a play wasn’t adding to Chloe’s happy feelings either. John labeled her as “popular” and the word fit Chloe like a skin-tight party-dress - she might have looked good, but she was suffocating behind the seams.

She tried, instead, to focus on the warm feeling of being called beautiful, of having dark brown eyes choose to look at her over every other girl at the party. It felt good. It felt really, really good.

In a drastically different circumstance that did not involve her tool of a brother, Beca would’ve been almost gleeful at this new, giggly, and adorably flustered Chloe. It’s not that she was jealous, though. She had to remind herself of that. No. She was just worried. Concerned for the doe-eyed girl who knew entirely too much about chemical equations and lab safety procedures. Yes. She dubbed the stabbing twist of her stomach to be ‘concern’, and allowed herself to feel ‘concern’ in massive waves when the couple across from her stood up. Over the sounds of the campfire, Beca heard John offer to drive Chloe home, and watched as Chloe stumbled through a nervous acceptance.

The marshmallow she was roasting had been on fire for too long, and by the time she realized she should take it out, it was practically ash.

The whole night was just filled with concern.

–

The inside of Chloe’s cheek was raw from where she’d been biting it all day. When she met with the girls that morning, she recognized the looks in their faces. It was a look she’d seen exactly two times before: after the first time they moved, when Ms. Beale forced Chloe to invite her prospective friends to a sleepover and, after an hour of coloring silently, was told that they’d all caught the same stomach flu and had to go home - then, three years later, when the bus driver forgot about her stop and they had to call her mom from the creepy school transportation lot as evening set in. It was the look of people who had lost hope in her, lost interest in her, and simply felt bad that they’d even tried in the first place. It was the look that told Chloe she was losing, disappearing again, and fast.

Which, she told herself, she was okay with. Because being invisible was a safe place, an easy place, and a place she’d learned to love. Only, the look was accompanied by a sort of betrayal, and though Chloe wanted to pretend like she didn’t know why, there was a not-so-quiet voice in the back of her head that she couldn’t shut off. The truth of the matter was, when John looked at her, she felt like he was only seeing her. Sure, she knew how ridiculous and fabricated it all was, but he had a way of saying things so that they sounded exactly how she’d always imagined they should sound. In one scary flash of a moment, she understood why people fell so hard for him.

Fiddling at the side of the chemistry classroom with the box of matches she was told to retrieve, she noticed her mouth tasting like metal again, and she consciously tried to stop biting. She threw a quick glance to her side, seeing Beca hunched over her lab book, tapping a pencil to the side of it. And there she was, biting her cheek again.  
Chloe wasn’t exactly sure what had happened with all of that. Since the night at the camp-fire, Beca hardly hazarded more than a few words to Chloe, answering her questions with grunts and groans. The inexplicable guilt of that night rose up again, and Chloe, ever the people-pleaser, felt like she needed to remedy the situation.

At the very least, she was desperate for that ease of conversation - for that lightheaded feeling of laughing without measuring how sexy the flutter of her eyelashes had to be while she did so or sharing a moment of goofy discomfort and enjoying the way it felt on her shoulders. Against all the drama that was clouding Chloe’s life, she needed that feeling again. So she breathed in determination and moved towards where Beca stood, noting that this was the first time Chloe Beale (and not whatever coy, cheerleading bimbo she was pretending to be) was initiating a conversation.

“So,” she started, leaning into Beca’s line of sight. The other girl glanced up quickly, eyebrows raised as if she was surprised Chloe was daring to speak to her. Chloe pushed that aside, and hurtled onward. “Hydrogen and oxygen are at a bar. Gold walks in, right? And they go, ‘Ay, you, get out of the bar!’”

The joke was random, weak, and ridiculous, but that was kind of their thing. That’s what Chloe loved about Beca - there were no games, no strategy, no hidden agenda…just terrible jokes and pitiful smiles. This time, however, as Chloe finished with an embarrassed chuckle, Beca only offered a fragile grin that came nowhere close to actually reaching her eyes. Chloe shifted her weight, trying again.

“Cuz, you know, Au is the atomic symbol for –”

“Yeah, I know,” Beca interrupted, somewhat sharply. She winced, trying to make her tone softer when she muttered, “I got it.” There was miniscule grin on her face that Chloe thought might be real, but for some reason the girl was visibly trying to push it away, willing her trademark scowl to come back. To distract herself from Chloe’s presence, she reached for the graduated cylinder.

Chloe felt that the conversation was weighted, and she could practically knock on the metal armor that Beca was putting on. But it only made her more determined to nudge her out.

“Oh good,” she tried, “You’re gonna help me measure with the…doodad.”

It was then that Beca made eye-contact with her, and Chloe saw the guilt that was there. It was accompanied, Chloe thought, by something akin to hurt. Beca sighed, her fingers running over the rim of the beaker.

“I actually thought I’d work with Amy today.”

The look Beca was giving her was infinitely different from the look of the other girls - who mostly just seemed indignant at their momentary loss in the overall game. It held something deeper, something that implied a genuine injury. Chloe was being silly, she knew she was being silly, but she could feel her heart in the deepest part of her gut.

“Oh,” she breathed, trying to will away tears with a fake smile, “She’s gonna take you back without an insurance waiver?”

“Yeah, well,” for a moment, Chloe could see that beautiful (beautiful?) hint of Beca’s teasing smile “She’s warmed up to me since her left eyebrow grew back.” Chloe realized, then, that the teasing smile was more of a silently offered apology, which only spurred the heavy weight of her temples as she fought off crying. Rejected. The one fear she had about moving out of her invisibility cloak was rejection. And here it was, plain and simple, and Chloe never thought it would hurt this bad. She also never thought the pain would be caused by a girl barely taller than five feet, covered in thick eyeliner and permanently toting headphones around her neck. 

Beca noticed Chloe’s eyes welling with water - somehow, the tears made them bluer, and she hated herself for being in a position to notice that - so she scurried away with her tools, trying to swallow the thick lump in her throat. Chloe, shaking her head to push away the onslaught of, frankly, unexpected emotion, moved to do the lab alone. She didn’t notice when Beca left class early, nearly racing to leave the room with a weak excuse of ‘an emergency’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have LOADS more fic that I'm uploading onto AO3 but you can read all of it on my tumblr, @ cheeky-geek-m0nkey.tumblr.com


	5. Being Seen

Chloe sang the words in her head, but she could feel them vibrate off the locker walls. I want you to want me. I need you to need me.

Boom. End of story. And everyone lives happily ever after. Except, it’s never really like that, is it?

Because the watch on her wrist clanged against the locker she opened, and her free period was spent essentially breaking up with the three girls that she’d actually become friends with. She took a breath, steadying herself as she stared into the vast void of her locker. The girls were using her from day one, and she prepared herself for the moment when they would get tired of keeping her as a pet - she just didn’t know that that day would come with such disappointment, and with the essential feeling that she wasn’t enough.

Chloe Beale liked being invisible because it allowed her to be nothing. Being seen opened up the possibility of being something worse than nothing: being not enough.  
And John, with his watch and his “Let’s make it official” and his boat-rides through the bay, made Chloe feel like maybe slightly more than not enough. When he smiled at her, she felt present, at the very least, and she felt like his interest demanded reciprocation. By liking her, he was doing her a favor. He was seeing her. And she owed him for that.

“That’s a nice watch.” Beca’s voice matched the echoes of Chloe’s watch against the locker. In less than a second, Chloe shot out of her reverie. Her heart-rate spiked, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“Beca,” Chloe breathed, turning around to see the smaller girl, ear-spikes and skinny jeans and grim smile painted cautiously on her face. She missed this girl, and it took her until that moment to realize that it was Beca’s image was searing itself in her brain when she tried to go to sleep at night. When John touched her hip or pulled a hair from her face, in a split second, she would see Beca in his eyes, and there would be an inexplicable pang of guilt. It just didn’t click until then, with Beca’s stare zeroed in on her and the hallways tingling with their interaction. “It’s….It’s not what it looks like, you know.”

She was defending herself, which was odd enough because, really, she’d just gotten through a painful fifteen minutes of telling the girls that what she was feeling was real. Beca caught this, her eyebrows raised in a question even though her eyes held some sense of resignation. Like she’d given up on Chloe long ago. When Chloe tried to say more, her throat just closed up. It had been an impossibly long day, and she’d seen that disappointed face too many times to count. But in Beca’s, for a moment, she thought she saw everything she was missing since she started this game.

“Since when are Stacie and Aubrey friends with Flo?” Beca asked, knowing it was a leading question. “Those girls absolutely hate each other, Chloe.”

Chloe tried, then, to tell Beca to stop. And when her words didn’t come out, she used her eyes. But she couldn’t meet Beca’s stare, deadened as it was. “And what are they doing talking to you?” 

When she let out a breath, with a smile that claimed a weak innocence, Chloe tacked on a shrug. Beca sighed in response.

“What happened to you?” If Chloe didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought that Beca’s voice had cracked, and she looked, impossibly, like she was hurt. “You-You were so different. And now you’re like the rest of them. You…” She looked up to stop herself from crying, or maybe to cut the eye-contact, because what she said next came with an almost disbelieving laugh. “You fell for my brother.”

She said the words with malice, confusion, and the taste of a scorned lover who’d been there before. Inside that passion, Chloe melted. She wanted to interrupt their individual, separate bubbles, storming into Beca’s and grabbing her because when something bled, broke, died, Chloe tended to pass out. Because Beca was the stone-cold one - the one with the grin and the angst the the undescribed darkness that somehow made her light. Beca was not the girl who got hurt, who was surprised, who fell in love.

Who fell in love. There wasn’t enough room in Chloe’s mind for the comprehension. She swallowed it with the words she tried to stutter out in defense, but Beca pushed it all down further, throwing her hand out in frustration to cut off Chloe’s litany of “No” and “It’s not like that”s.

“This whole thing is something you cooked up with those three!” Beca nearly shouted, her voice sharp. “It’s just a joke to you, isn’t it?” There was a beat of silence, where Beca was just awake enough to pierce Chloe with her stare. “You want to know why John fell for you? He thinks that you’re the first honest relationship that he’s been in.”

“Well, he’s not exactly innocent in all this, okay?” Chloe sputtered, trying to keep up. “I mean, you know how John Tucker can be.”

Beca took a step, throwing her head back in frustration. “Jesus, Chlo, everyone knows how he can be. He is John Tucker. And still, every girl in school lines up to date him, knowing what they know. I thought that you were different from that.”

“I am,” Chloe argued, stepping forward when Beca stepped back. But she said it as a whisper, and she’s almost confident Beca didn’t hear it.

“I just want to know why I was involved,” Beca said suddenly, almost as an after-thought. “What, did you guys think it would be funny to break the little sister’s heart too? Give her a hint of the straight-girl-crush because the whole Tucker name must be cursed or what? Because this whole thing…” Beca stopped to gesture between the two of us, and Chloe’s mouth was open in shock. This was the point at which Beca should have stopped - would have, for any other person. She was rambling, and more than that, she was crying, feeling the moment where instead of taking her walls down brick by brick, the people around her decided to crush them completely. Leaving her standing naked and scared in the center. She took a breath, her finger still out between the two of them. “This whole thing really had me fucking going for a while, Chloe.”  
She backed away as she talked, naked and scared and holding onto anger to shield her in the absence of the walls. Chloe watched her walk-away, watched the way her legs moved just like they did that first day in detention. She watched how Beca didn’t look at Chloe once behind her back. She watched because she didn’t want to think. She watched because she was sure that she couldn’t think. And then she sat by the edge of her locker until enough time had passed to stand and go to the nurse.

–

The party was in a few hours, or less than a few hours - Chloe had been avoiding her clock, because she had been avoiding her phone, because the only messages she got where from a certain Tucker that she couldn’t stand to think about.

When the girls had talked about breaking things off with John, Chloe could recognize a certain panic rising in her - the kind that causes people to act outside of reason so that order could be maintained. But, looking in the mirror, Chloe saw the bags under her eyes that accompanied a night of bad sleep. She thought all night about the way Beca looked when she was leaving her yesterday. About the way Beca looked when she was crying, and about how that was worse than how Beca looked when she was cold and apathetic, because a crying Beca stabbed Chloe’s breath, made her want to jump at the girl and hold her until she stopped. Yes, when the girls mentioned breaking it off with John, a panic about the order of things took over. But when Chloe actually lost Beca, something greater than panic took over. She felt like something had died.

When she closed her eyes, she saw the way Beca licked her lips before she said “He’s…not really my type”, or the wink she gave when she was crouched down in chemistry. She thought about the way Beca looked in her damn tank tops, and, last night, she mindlessly traced what she memorized of the other girl’s tattoo against her pillowcase. And, as much as she tried not too, she thought about Beca’s words yesterday, and the finger that dangled between the two of them when Beca said “This whole thing…” before trailing off. It hurt Chloe, but there was a tickle somewhere in her gut - one that made her nervous and excited and on fire.

She kissed Stacie, the night of the campfire before John took her home. She looked at the other girl, nose to nose, and felt her breath play across her lips, and she kissed her. She assumed her breathlessness was the result of someone like Stacie sharing her particularly unusual, and fucking fantastic, talent with her. Which is why it didn’t make much sense how many times Chloe actively pushed down the memory of that moment, or why, when she thought about it not, she imagined leaning into it, reaching her hands up to find not Stacie’s long hair, but Beca’s, feeling the intricate braids under her hands and…

She was sure something had clicked a long time ago, that there were other faces and other feelings that her mind had conveniently forced her away from, but she felt, then, a shift of the cosmos, as if every instance in her life made a strangely large amount of sense.

The entire time she thought this, she was trying to put on makeup the way the girls had taught her, poking and scratching at her eyes to get the definition perfect. But it all smudged and, slightly grateful for an escape from her thoughts, Chloe sighed and washed her face again. When she looked back in the mirror, the first thing she noticed was her eyes - how blue they were, like they contained depths and depths of oceans inside of them. Then her cheeks, her hair, her freckles. When had she gotten that scar on her forehead? When did she get that twist of her lip?

She spent what might be considered an unnatural amount of time looking at herself in the mirror, then, nearly giving up any prep-time she set aside for John’s party. Because for the first time in a long time, she saw herself. And she liked it. Or at least, she thought she could like it.

When she made it to the party, she thought maybe she couldn’t, though because she’d forgone the makeup and settled on jeans and a t-shirt - because she felt comfortable in these things, and beautiful in these things, and that was enough. Enough until she felt every single eye centered on her, and heard her voice coming from somewhere behind her. Or, at least, the voice of Past-Chloe, saying things about John that she’d nearly forgotten about inside all of her recent thoughts. She looked at the TV screen in panic before scanning the crowd and finding Aubrey, Stacie, and Flo standing in the center, their eyes smug but almost guilty. Behind them, to the right, was Beca, sipping on a drink and looking at a world behind the television screen. She was stoic where everyone else was moving, and Chloe, who’s brain really had bad-timing when it came to daydreaming, was struck by it. Struck, that is, until she realized she could still hear her own voice and it was getting dangerously close to saying something she’d regretted time and time again. She ran to where the TV was, pulling out the aux cord before Past-Chloe could break-up with John. Still, the basic tone of Past-Chloe’s words was understood.

Guiltily moving from around the television, Chloe saw John rushing to her. “What’s going on?” he asked nervously, and for the first time, Chloe noticed how when he looked at her his eyes were always half focused on her and half focused on the people around them. Chloe helped his double-vision moving to be closer to the crowd he was keeping an eye on. When she looked out, her eyes shot to Beca. This time, Beca didn’t ignore her, or wink, or grin, or grimace. She just stared at Chloe, and Chloe stared back, and she swore she could feel something cracking between them. Something opening up. When someone in the crowd shouted, “Come on, Blondie, let’s get this show on the road” her focused was pulled back.

“John,” she said quietly, moving towards John and looking at him directly. He deserved that much, Chloe thought. “I need to tell you something. This entire time, I was pretending to be a person that I’m not so that you’d fall for me. I was…Well, I was pretending to be a lot of things that I’m not, in order to make people happy. Or, like, avoid judgment, or whatever.” She was rambling, losing track of her words quickly, and she was almost grateful for the rowdy kid in the front who shouted at her to be louder. She pushed the microphone closer to her mouth. “We were trying to break your heart so that you knew what it felt like.”

She was afraid to look at John, but she assumed that she deserved at least that much punishment. When she did, he looked at her with nothing more than confusion. “We?” he said.

Chloe did nothing but look at the three girls in the center of the room. They all avoided eye contact, shifting uncomfortably enough to confirm their guiltiness. Looking back at John, she slipped the watch off. Without it one her wrist, she felt lighter, almost like it was a shackle of some sort. She tried to hide her smile of relief by whispering a weak, and genuine, apology.

“Look,” Chloe tried again, facing the crowd. “This entire time, I’ve been…I’ve been lying about who I am. To you. To myself,” she paused, finding Beca again, who at this point lost all interest in maintaining a cold facade and was looking intently back at Chloe in a way that made Chloe want to faint. No one in the room noticed their stare, but Chloe was okay with that. The look wasn’t invisible, it was just shared, quiet, hidden, protected but in a good, healthy, beautiful way. She felt bigger, somehow. “But I’m done pretending. This is the real me. This is Chloe.”

In a movie, she would’ve said that, and the music would have swelled, and Beca would have smiled this huge goofy smile that she would later deny (for the record, Beca did smile this huge goofy smile that she did later deny), and the screen would’ve frozen on this moment of epiphany, maybe as Chloe was jumping into the crowd. The lights in the theater would go up, and everyone would leave satisfied. Only, this wasn’t a movie, it was a high school birthday party, where life-time confessions aren’t as interesting as red solo cups and chicks dancing in halter-tops, which is why, when Chloe finished her speech, some guy in the front row wasted no time throwing his drink on her. And that act brought Aubrey to squeal out of righteousness, and sent Stacie - with the two girls trailing behind - up to the stage to fight back.

And, again, in a movie, they would’ve said something extremely motivational about how they’d discovered the power of true friendship over romance and sex, and how girl power always won. But, again, high-school-party is the setting here. Thus, instead of one girl standing on stage with a drink thrown on her, there were four.

Four soaking wet girls and a certain John Tucker grinning, pumping his fist to the crowd’s chant of his name. Chloe’s hand went for the giant cake on display, her eyes instinctively scanning the crowd until she found Beca. The other girl had that suggestive grin on her face again - the one that drove Chloe mad last night - and her eyes trailed over Chloe’s body purposefully. Right. Cotton white shirts weren’t exactly immune to the see-through powers of liquid. When Beca stopped ogling in the way she knew made Chloe blush, she looked at Chloe’s hand on the cake, then threw a glance at John, who was now dancing to the chat. 

Holding up her hand, she mouthed “Proceed”, and Chloe smiled, grabbing a piece of the cake and flinging it at John.  
In the history of the birthday-cake-war, it was the shot heard round the world.  
–  
Her mother claimed that the food fight was all that was really necessary to begin with. Teenagers had hormones, and hormones needed to be let out through some kind of activity. If it wasn’t going to be sex, it might as well be food-flinging.

Though Chloe didn’t necessarily subscribe to this belief, she had to admit that there was a total absence of weight or fakeness or sickness in her stomach when the three girls met up with her in the parking lot, linking arms. The cake fight had put them in a place of need, and they needed to turn to each other for support - or for various ways to get frosting out of hair without totally ruining texture and curl.

When they walked through the doors, Chloe was laughing - in a group of friends, Chloe was laughing, and she was so caught up with this that she almost didn’t hear her name being called. She unchained arms, telling the other girl’s to hold up for a second when she spotted the classic tank and plaid ensemble of Beca Mitchell strolling her way.

Easily, Chloe closed the distance between the two of them, and almost regretted it immediately because of the way she couldn’t help her smile or the flush that was rising in her cheeks. “Hi,” she said quickly, leaning into it.

“Hey,” Beca answered, trying to bite back her own smile, and pulling away slightly - not out of discomfort or lack of a desire for contact, but because she couldn’t exactly handle the proximity either. “So uh, things didn’t quite work out with Amy and I. Um, see we have woodshop together as well…”

Chloe’s eyes bugged (adorably, Beca noted), and she jumped closer to Beca in worry. “Was there another fire?”

Beca chuckled, shaking her head. “No, uh, no,” she started to scratch the back of her head nonchalantly, “No, I…I clearly warned her that I shouldn’t be operating the hand saw!”

“No way!” Chloe gasped, giggling. Beca giggled back, and Chloe noticed that she bit her tongue when she laughed. Chloe was nervous, sure, but in a way that was comfortable. Warm, again. She could’ve sunken into Beca’s smile.

“Um,” Beca interjected when she noticed Chloe’s glance dart down to her lips. “But, like, chemistry sucks a load of dicks without you. Whaddya say? Lab partners?”

There was a light in Beca’s eyes that suggested more than what she was saying, and Chloe hung onto that light, analyzing it. “Are you sure?”

Beca breathed, and Chloe swore she could feel the breath move through her, build her up, send her spine into shivers. “Yes. I’m sure,” she said, her stare unbreakable, almost dazed. “You’re perfect, Chlo.”

She had to blink for a moment to shake away the world she was swimming in. “Um. I mean, like, because you’re smarter than me,” she fumbled, trying to cover up her words, “And so far…not flammable. Right?”

Chloe giggled, nodding. She leaned in so that their foreheads were almost touching and said, “Well, we’ll have to test that one, won’t we?”

Which was a comment that surprised even herself, but the wink she added sent Beca into an absolute tizzy, and it was then that Chloe learned the complete pleasure of making Beca Tucker hot and bothered. Beca tried to move away, but their foreheads were already touching, so when she shifted, her lips brushed against Chloe’s. They both jolted back, then, and Beca nearly lept for her backpack, backing away quickly. Chloe giggled, her hand touching her lips before she shouted out, quickly. “Hey, Tucker?”

Beca turned around, her eyes still skittish.

“We’ve got chemistry to work on, yeah? My free period is at noon.”

When Beca blushed, nodding and fleeing from the interaction, Chloe hummed contentedly to herself, turning to find Stacie, Aubrey, and Flo boring their eyes into her.  
“Oh. My. God,” Stacie squealed, “You totally have a thing for the other Tucker!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have LOADS more fic that I'm slowly uploading onto AO3, but if you wanna check it all out right now, go to (and chat with me) @ cheeky-geek-m0nkey.tumblr.com


End file.
